Tautology
by Sorrel
Summary: It may have its roots in despair, but a home is a home, and this one is magical. Post-Tomorrow. Mostly Wesley's POV. Wes-Spike-Xander, Ethan-Drusilla, Lindsey-Faith, Willow and Oz.


**Tautology.** A tautology is a true statement comprised of statements that aren't necessarily either true or false, or an argument that is based on specious logic. It's also a mathematical term regarding truth tables, for when despite all the false pieces you have all over the grid, in the last column it all lines up as truth.

* * *

****

It's dark all the time, he thinks. He knows on a logical level that there is light outside some of the time, but he can't quite make himself open the curtains to find out. He only emerges from his cavelike apartment when the sun has set, and then only to buy some groceries and to waste a few hours of empty, meaningless time at the bottom of a bottle. Sometimes there is someone sitting on the stick barstool next to him, and on these days he wastes more time with empty, meaningless sex. But when it's over he always retreats back into is apartment, and the sun travels the sky where he can't see it.

Sunlight comes only in the form of visitors, something that is unexpected but strangely welcome. The fact that his visitors are a vampire and his quietly psychotic lover turns their quality for drawing sunlight into an irony. He finds it odd that he takes such intense pleasure in their company, but then nothing about Spike and Xander has ever been less than odd, and a good deal has been considerably more than strange.

He even sleeps with them sometimes, though only in the most literal sense. They've offered more, but he has refused thus far. Some day soon his need for touch and companionship will overwhelm his need to be alone, but for now he says no.

He realizes, distantly, that it's also odd that the two of them are here in LA at all. Buffy was brought back from the dead months ago, and yet neither of them has made any move towards home. He wonders, idly, whether they have contact with anyone from Sunnydale, but finds that he doesn't truly care.

He sits curled into the window seat, his knees hugged to his chest as he stares at the moon. The cool silver light washes over him almost like forgiveness, and he tilts his face up to its touch. Then he bows his head and begins to cry- great, wracking sobs that are no less terrible for their silence.

Somewhere in the dark apartment, a clock sadly chimes the midnight hour.

* * *

****

He stands in the middle of the warehouse floor, surveying the area with a sort of reproving mildness. Spike's Desoto is parked along one wall, along with Wesley's old motorcycle and his new silver SUV. Another wall is line with weapons and protected, Xander tells him, with the most powerful and thorough warding spell money can buy. Wesley can feel the magic and is impressed in spite of himself. Mats and punching bags cover part of the floor, and one sprawling corner seems to be filled almost entirely with torture devices. Wes decides that he doesn't want to inquire too closely about it.

"Apartments are upstairs," Xander tells him, in that eerily blank way he has of speaking. His eyes have the same blank deadness, as if the wheels are still turning but nobody's home.

"I'll show him up," Spike says while Wesley mentally chastises himself for his horrid mixed metaphor, and wraps a friendly arm around Wes's shoulders, steering him towards the steps. Xander just nods and carefully lifts a sword from the wall, the wards glowing briefly as his hands pass through.

There are five apartments upstairs, each with its own bathroom, and a lavish kitchen to serve all five. Spike and Xander have laid claim to the set of rooms closest to the steps, and there is a messy, lived-in one at the back, but the rest are empty. He takes the nearest empty one, next to Spike and Xander, and mentally shrugs at the connecting door to their room before Spike starts to help him move his stuff into the rooms. Wes clucks over the state of the kitchen cupboard, and as soon as the sun sets he drags them both off to the grocery store.

They settle into an easy pattern as the days go on. Wesley starts sleeping through the better part of the day like Spike and Xander, and getting up in the late afternoon to cook dinner. Xander eats mechanically, consuming food for fuel rather than enjoyment, but Spike tears through his own unneeded meals with unholy glee. Then Spike and Xander go out and kill things for entertainment and sometimes for money, and sometimes Wesley comes along, and sometimes he just finds them afterwards. Sometimes they don't go out at all for whatever reason, and on those nights they just laze around watching bad TV, piled on top of each other on the couch. Even if they do go out they usually reserve a couple hours of time for mindless entertainment and the sheer comfort of wallowing in another's touch, and Wesley always cooks them breakfast before they go back to bed.

Spike is Spike, as evil as he has ever been but astonishingly tender to those he calls his own. Wesley he treats with affection and respect, but Xander gets all of his gentleness and just a touch of wariness, and a carefully guiding hand when the boy's brittle hold on himself threatens to break.

Xander is darkly quiet and barely there, his eyes blank and dead. He spends hours on the warehouse floor, endlessly practicing his battle skills and sleeping a scant two hours a night. Even when fighting he's controlled, handling is sword or whatever weapon is closest to hand with the eerie grace of a ballet dancer. He relaxes some during their TV marathons, and Wesley sees the only bits of the old Xander that are left during those times. But he knows that the only time Xander truly lets go is during sex.

Strangely, the screams don't even bother him anymore.

* * *

****

Drusilla shows up sometimes. The first time she came, she tried to crawl into bed with Spike and Xander, but when he saw the look on Xander's face Spike sent her gently away. She took one of the empty rooms, the one on the other side of Wesley, instead. Only a few minutes after her lullabies began he crept into the other room and found refuge underneath the covers, bolstered by two bodies, one warm and the other cool.

When she comes back after that she always has her human pet with her- a twinkling, sardonic older man with the stench of chaos magic clinging to him and a name that leaves Wesley with the vague feeling that he's heard of the man. It's a matter of weeks before he recognizes him as Ethan Rayne.

He still sleeps with Spike and Xander whenever the insane couple is in town, afraid of them for some hovering reason he can't name. He feels safe and protected when wrapped in the arms of the two men who are so much stronger than him, and he wonders at the dichotomy of enjoying the childlike feeling it provokes, and his need to be so capable the rest of the time.

After days like those he cooks an extra-large dinner, and over time and the dinner table he grows to enjoy Ethan's company, and even Drusilla's at times. As the weeks wear on they wander less and less, and eventually they live in the spare room all the time, and it's Their Room. Eventually Wesley grows accustomed to them, and the only times he spends the day in Spike and Xander's bed is for everyone's mutual pleasure.

He has lived there for a few months, and the leaves are turning red and orange and yellow in places that are not LA. Wesley is woken up in the middle of the day- in his own bed, for the first time in a week- by a knocking at the door at the bottom of the steps.

When he stumbles sleepily down and opens the door, he sees an irritated-looking Faith and a tired-looking Lindsey. He opens his mouth to ask why they are here, but his mind flashes to the messy room at the end of the hall and he decides not to waste the oxygen. He tries to work up fear of Faith and hatred of Lindsey, but doesn't really feel anything except exhaustion from having his rest interrupted. So what he says instead is, "You could've just picked the damn lock."

"Lost my picks," she says. "Thought this was Spike and Xander's place."

"It is," he replies mildly. "I just live here." He glances at Lindsey. "You here for the spare room?"

"Yeah," Faith answers for him. "Picked him up in New York."

"Busy boy," he says reprovingly to Lindsey. "New York's a long way from LA." He turns back to Faith. "Kill a lot of evil things?"

"Yeah, it was fun. Wesley, we're chatting. Why are we chatting?"

"You woke me up," he informs her. "It was either that or yell, and I'm too tired to yell. Go up, and go to sleep."

"Most people sleep at night," Lindsey points out, and Wesley displays his teeth amicably.

"Not here they don't," he says, and goes back to bed.

****

* * *

Faith settles instantly into the routine of their odd little family, but Lindsey is more hesitant. It takes him several evening of bizarre and disjointed dinner-table conversations and mornings of mindless tv to adjust to their happy little home.

What's so ironic, Wesley thinks to himself sometimes, is that he can think that without sarcasm. Because it _is_ a happy home, as strange and frequently surreal it may be to live there. Somehow all seven of them manage to interact completely without friction, which would seem almost fantastic, considering their various histories, if any of them had enough left of their old selves to care about old enmities.

The evenings when they all go are the best. Ethan and Drusilla disappear every evening and no one asks where they go, but then no one really wants to. Faith and Spike always fight together, and Xander either fights with them or goes off on his own. When he wanders off like that Wesley is sent after him to keep an eye on him, but when the boy's with Spike Wesley is free to join Lindsey at whatever bar he's playing in that night. By one or two in the morning they all meet up there anyway, and Drusilla manages to both charm and repel all the young men and a few of the young women in the bar with her twisted sweetness and dark, exotic good looks. They drink for a few hours before heading back to the warehouse, and then they watch mindless TV for a few morn hours before splitting apart to retire in their separate rooms. It's a good life, and Wesley enjoys it, but sometimes he wonders if maybe, there's something more hovering near him, and he just can't see clearly enough to grasp whatever it is.

****

* * *

A knock comes softly at Wesley's door, and he calls out a soft "Come in," in response.

The door opens and Spike stands there, his arms crossed over his bare chest a scowl fixed firmly on his face. Wesley raises an enquiring eyebrow.

"Yes?"

"You're in your room."

Wesley looks around before turning back to Spike, his face arranged in a look of exaggerated surprise. "Why, so I am. Would you look at that."

"You should be in our room." Spike growls, and Wesley's eyebrows snap together when he hears the seriousness of the vampire's tone. "I mean, it should be your bloody room too."

"What my incredibly thick lover is trying to get out," Xander says from behind Spike, with as humorous a tone as Wesley has heard from him so far, "is that we don't want you in a separate room. We want you on the other side of the damn door, with us. As girly as this is gonna sound, we want you to wake up with us, not sneak back to your room as soon as we're asleep."

When Wesley just stares at him, Xander continues gently, "Haven't you gotten it yet? We're better with you than we are without you. Spike actually behaves himself, and I... come back a little. Closer to human. And sex is a little less about breaking something and putting it back together and a lot more about pleasure."

Wesley shakes his head slowly, thinking that this is the most he has heard out of Xander's mouth at one time since he left Sunnydale become a Rogue demon hunter. Then everything that Xander said sinks in, and he thinks that maybe Xander's unusual eloquence was just proof that he was right.

He smiles, and the two of them drag him out of the armchair he was curled into and across the room. And as the door clicks shut behind him, he feels like he's finally caught that elusive something, and he wonders if maybe this is how it's really meant to be.

****

* * *

Wesley's old room doesn't stay empty for long. Willow drifts into town while winter rages in places other than LA, her hair and eyes black as sin but her magic mostly under control. She seems haunted, her eyes shadowed by the death of someone she loves, but she soon blooms into the occasional smile again under the weight of utter _togetherness_ that pervades their little family, and looking after her brings Xander even further out of himself. He's still a lethal fighter, but he's as close to his old self, Wesley thinks, as he ever will be.

Eventually they run into Angel. It's too much to hope that they can avoid him forever, and they're not exactly a high-profile lot. But it's a big city and the docks aren't exactly Angel's usual haunts, so they've hoped to avoid the inevitable confrontation, if only because there are very few creatures who are more terrified of Angel than them, and so it's unlikely that any of them would give away their location.

But he tracks them down eventually, and finds them relaxing in some dive that Lindsey has sang in earlier that night. Ethan and Drusilla are still off enjoying their usual round of magic and mayhem, but everyone else is clustered around the table, laughing and knocking back drinks. A slightly drunk Willow is swaying back and forth, humming softly under her breath to some inner music; Faith is perched in Lindsey's lap and flirting like crazy; and Spike and Xander are wrapped around Wesley from opposite sides and kissing right in front of his nose, which causes his eyes to cross as he tries to watch them.

Then the door crashes open and Angel is standing there with his fists clenched at his sides. Spike seizes a lead pipe from the table, one that he'd apparently picked up in the alleys earlier, but everyone else keeps their seat even as all around the table, hands stray to the weapons. Willow mutters a sobriety charm under her breath, and the rest of the bar falls silent as the tension radiating from their little group snakes its way through everyone's muscles.

Most people would have backed down a little when faced with a group as intimidating as theirs, but because he is Angel he stalks forward until he's nose-to-nose with Spike and glares down into the younger vampire's eyes. "You told me once that this city wasn't big enough for the two of us," he hisses. "So, what the hell are you doing here?"

"Helpin' the helpless," Spike replies with a cheeky grin, and Angel glares at him.

"I don't believe you."

"And whyever not? We're good at it. Got me a better gang than you'll ever have, you ponce. We've even cut down on the soddin' human crime rate down 'ere near the docks. Which is my territory, by the way, so what the fuck are you doin' down here?"

Angel actually growls, and Xander moves up to flank Spike on one side. Wesley laughs to himself and Angel shoots him a wounded glance, and Wesley looks at him in surprise.

"You tried to kill me," he says. "Don't give me that bloody kicked puppy look."

Angel flinches at the word "kill," but he redirects his hurt into anger at Spike and when he turns back to the bleached vampire he growls, "Get out of my city."

"Well, that's the rub, isn't it?" Spike says cheerfully. He's enjoying this scene, and is fully in control of it. "It's not really your city anymore, is it? You've lost your hold, lost your soddin' touch. Bein' locked in a box in the drink'll do that to a man, though, so no one really blames you. Well," Spike says, considering, _"You_ probably blame you, but then you're a broody wanker and you do that a lot."

"Spike," Angel growls. "Get out of my city."

"Angel," Spike mocks. "Make me."

Angel gestures sharply with one hand, and four humans- Gunn, Cordy, Fred, and Connor- come through the doorway, armed to the teeth. Immediately Faith moves to the other side of Spike, the one not occupied by Xander, with a broken beer bottle in one hand and a length of chain in the other. Wesley climbs more slowly to his feet, his sword already drawn, and sees that Lindsey has a shotgun trained on the group and Willow has a ball of green fire hovering between her cupped palms.

"Take it easy, Red," Spike says without glancing behind him. "They're only human."

"I got 'em, Wills," Faith adds, and with a happy grin she throws herself into the knot of Angel's friends.

Wesley dives after her, knowing that she's going to have her hands full with Connor alone. Green flame arcs over his head and circles Cordelia and Fred, holding them captive, but Wesley barely notices because he's fighting Gunn.

The fight only lasts a matter of minutes, though it seems to stretch out for hours. But at the end of it Gunn is flat on his back on the sticky floor, with Wesley crouched over him, his sword pressed to the smooth brown skin at Gunn's jugular.

"You gonna kill me, man?" Gunn asks, his voice hoarse. "I had your _back."_

"And then you didn't," Wesley says distantly. He's thinking that Gunn's eyes are very dark, and that this man used to be his best friend. "And then they did."

Gunn doesn't answer, and Wesley smiles down at him. "I should kill you for threatening my family," he says, but he's distracted by a crash as Connor throws Faith into a wall. She scrambles to her feet, but the shotgun roars in Lindsey's hands and Connor is down, blood seeping from between the fingers clenched over his shoulder.

Angel snarls and breaks away from Spike and Xander, grabbing Lindsey and hurling him through the window. Spike takes this opportunity to land a heavy kick square in the back of his skull and the older vampire goes down like a stone. Gunn tries to take advantage of Wesley's own inattention by punching him, but Willow's green fire circles him like it did Cordy and Fred, and he's pinned just the same.

Wesley rolls away and comes to his feet next to Spike and Xander, who draw him closer to their bodies. He allows himself to be drawn and remains patiently still while they check him for injuries, watching as Faith hauls a mostly uninjured Lindsey back through the window. Finding him unhurt, both vampire and human kiss him softly, and though he feels the accusing eyes of his former friends he ignores them.

Faith has her arm wrapped around Lindsey's waist, supporting him. Spike is the first to move, and when he picks his way through the carnage of the bar on his way to the door everyone else follows. Wesley brings up the rear, and he casts a last look at all his of friends before quietly closing the door behind him.

****

* * *

Faith tucks the end of the last bandage into one of the folds wrapped around Lindsey's arm and tugs at his shirt, about to pull it off. He captures her hand in his and ducks his head so that he's looking directly into her eyes and says, "What are you doing?"

"Taking your shirt off," she informs him. "Your chest is in shreds, big guy."

He nods and slowly releases her hand, and when she grips his shirt again she's shaking.

It doesn't take her more than a few seconds to get his shirt off, and then there's an expanse of smooth skin stretched over muscles right in front of her nose, with several tiny cuts left by the glass. She cleans them carefully and coats them with ointment before gently smoothing Band-Aids over them. Finished, she starts to stand up, but he pins her hands against his chest and peers into her eyes from under the dark hair that falls into his eyes.

She stills, then tugs on her hand. When he doesn't let her free she laughs, a little shakily, and with a shock she realizes that she's actually nervous.

"Are we that laughable?" Lindsey asks, his voice impossibly low and intimate, and she shakes her head a little wildly.

"No, just... a bad idea."

"_Life _is a bad idea," Lindsey says. _"We _would be damn good."

"I know," she admits, and with two fingers under her chin he tilts her face up to his.

"Then what's the problem?"

"I'm not sure," she says, and he kisses her.

****

* * *

Lindsey soon moves into Faith's room, and following the unspoken warehouse law, Oz soon shows up to fill the apartment. Silently, Wesley hopes that no one else shifts rooms, because nine mouths are a lot to feed, even if Drusilla rarely consumes more than a heavily sugared cup of tea.

And for a while Oz and Willow oblige him by being very politely but very completely distant from one another. Gradually, though, the almost charmed closeness of odd little family begins to work on the two of them, and they grow comfortable with each other again.

Wesley watches them, just as he watches everyone else. He's good at it- he'd once done it professionally, even. And ever since he left his comfortable little flat and moved himself into this strangely surreal warehouse life he finds himself stepping back from everything and just... watching.

He sees the formerly evil Slayer and the formerly evil lawyer growing closer and closer until any time that Lindsey isn't out singing and Faith isn't out Slaying they are together, seeming to be more one creature than two, dark hair and clothes and eyes and tan skin mingling together till it's all of one piece.

He sees the sweet, childish madness in Drusilla's eyes, and sees how utterly beguiling the natural chaos of her insanity is to Ethan Rayne, and why those two cling to each other so tightly.

He even sees things about the two men in his own relationship, sees more than they could ever realize. He sees the conflicting natures in Spike, the natural violence that burns under his skin that he lets out by hunting demons down with vicious determination, and the protectiveness that he relieves by looking after their little family, and the need to love and be loved and needed in return that is fulfilled by Xander and himself. He sees the odd balance that Xander has reached between the quirky, goofy inner geek and the silent, deadly ghost of a man that had walked into his flat that first night out of the hospital. He sees the need that they feed in each other, and sometimes he can even see where he fits into it all.

And because of this he can see the growing bond between Willow and Oz, the deep love that has never died but has somehow changed into something less than romance and more than friendship. He wonders if they have realized just how more they are together than they are apart, but decides that they probably don't, because very few people do.

And when he hears quiet voices deep into the afternoon, when everyone else is asleep, he wonders gloomily is he'll be able to rope someone else into helping him cook when Oz moves in with Willow and someone else ends up in the empty room.

****

* * *

She is smiling at him sprawled out in an armchair with him sitting at her feet, leaning back against her legs with his head tipped back so he can see her face. Her fingers are wound through his hair, petting him as absently as if she doesn't even notice what she's doing, and the mid-afternoon sun lights her hair, picking out stands of brilliant red in its glow. It makes him vaguely uncomfortable, because those red strands remind him of another time, being madly in love and driving east with a broken air conditioner and the windows rolled down so he chokes on exhaust and tears. But he doesn't want to think of that, so he just looks at her black hair and pretends that he doesn't see the red, and that there's no past of love and heartbreak between them.

"You hate it, don't you."

"Hmm?"

"The wolf," she says, and he grimaces.

"Yeah." He never regained control of the change after that last disaster in Sunnydale.

"That's because it's not a wolf, you know."

"What?" He sits up at this, her fingers sliding from his hair as he turns to face her. There's a little smile on her face as she says, "The beast you turn into isn't really a wolf. Being bitten isn't a clean change, you see. The essence of Wolf that you get ends up all jumbled in with Man, and so you can't change at will, and when you do change isn't no into a wolf, but a manwolf. Which is why the best is a bit crazy."

He's silent in response, and after a moment she adds, "I can change that, you know."

He doesn't bother saying, "What do you mean?" or, "What are you talking about?"

Instead, he opts for the simpler, "How?"

"By separating Wolf and Man. You'll still change during the full moon, but you'll be able to change any other time too, and when you do shift you'll be completely wolf, and yet still able to think and reason."

He thinks about it for a long, silent minute. "Is it a hard spell?"

White teeth flash in a smile. "Not for me."

****

* * *

Oz soon moves his meager belongings into Willow's room. When Wesley quietly makes his way past their open door in the afternoons, on his way to the kitchen to start dinner, more often than not he sees Willow sound asleep on her bed, with Oz curled up in wolf form at her feet.

In fact, Oz spends more time in wolf form than human, though whatever shape he's in he's near Willow. He's always either seated at her feet or padding after her, and the sight of the dark with the russet wolf at her heels becomes a familiar and somewhat feared sight around their dockside neighborhood. And Wesley watches the empty room, wondering how long it will be before someone else shows up to fill the empty room.

An emissary of the Seelie court shows up and stays for a week, trying to convince Willow to join them. He says that she is so powerful that she wavers on the divide between _having_ magic and _being_ magic, and that her presence glows blindingly to his people's eyes even so far away as Britain. She gently refuses, but he extracts a promise of at least a visit and a chance to change her mind before he leaves.

Anya joins them briefly and attempts, in her own blunt fashion, to convince Xander to return to Sunnydale, but even she can see how firmly tied he is to their family and she soon gives up and leaves.

Finally a ghost takes up residence in the empty room, an Irishman with black hair and laughing blue eyes who won't tell them his name. The finally give up on guessing and just call him Mac- Spike's suggestion, of course. He knows everything about everyone, and often tips them off to demons that try to sneak onto their turf.

Their territory expands, but then who would challenge them? Lindsey is the only one of them with no special powers or weapons training, but he has his trusty shotgun, and after the first time she hears him singing Willow starts teaching him voice magic. The rest of them have already settled into their own unique talents and skills, and together there are few who could possibly stand against them, and no one really does.

He and Xander sneak out some afternoons, while the rest of the warehouse is sleeping. They get on Wesley's motorcycle and roar around town, the better parts that they don't usually stray into, and they know that Mac follows to keep an eye on them, but they pretend that he doesn't so they can hold onto the illusion of being alone.

They run into Cordelia one day while browsing in the market for tomatoes, and to their surprise she's polite, almost friendly. Mac disappears as soon as they start talking, and vaguely Wesley wonders why, but he's too wrapped up in the surprisingly pleasant feeling of actually talking to his old friend again to really wonder at it.

They fall into a pattern of meeting at the marketplace on certain days and going for coffee at the park afterward, and after that first meeting Mac is always around. Wesley notices that though Cordelia can't see him, the ghost always watches her with an odd expression on his face, almost like wistfulness, or longing, but not quite.

He asks Cordelia about it one days when the ghost is off on an errand. "Have you ever known any Irishmen?" he asks, and she gives him an unreadable glance.

"I worked with one for a while."

"Was he about medium height, black hair, blue eyes?"

"That describes a lot of people," she says cautiously, but there's a flash of recognition in her eyes. "Why do you ask?"

"Well, because he lives with us, and he seems to know you."

"That's not him," Cordelia says flatly. "The one I know died a couple years ago."

"That's perfect, then," Wesley says. "He's a ghost."

"Doyle?" she asks, and her voice quavers a little. The ghost appears beside them, and gives Wesley a reproachful look.

"Bad Watcher," he says. "You could've at least let me stay dead to th' girl."

"Be polite, Doyle," Wesley responds cheerfully. "Say hi to the nice lady."

The glare that the ghost trains on him is poisonous, and beside him Xander stifles a laugh.

****

* * *

It's a quiet evening at the warehouse, and chatter over the dinner table is fairly minimal. Ethan and Dru are off somewhere, and Willow is silent and pale with exhaustion from pouring power into the wards around the warehouse the night before. Her quiet infects everyone else, and so dinner-table conversation is limited to "Please pass the butter," and "Did you get me sodding pig's blood _again?"_

Everyone is passing the dishes to Spike, who's on clean-up duty that evening, and Spike is grumbling about it, just as he always does. Doyle suddenly zooms into the room, looking more agitated than Wesley has ever seen him, and starts firing information at them with startling speed.

Wesley and Xander understand the gist of the message first, and the two of them are out of the kitchen and down the steps in a matter of seconds, grabbing weapons off of the warded racks before Spike manages to follow them down. "What the bleedin' hell is going on here?" he demands. "What was the mick babbling about, anyway?"

"He was with Cordelia," Wesley replies shortly as he checks the balance of the sword in his hand. "Who was with the rest of Angel Investigations, and Angel apparently bit of more than he could chew. They're going to die, and they're not far from here."

"So you're just going to go off and sodding help them, of course," Spike growls. Wesley looks at him and shrugs, a little smile curling the corners of his mouth.

"You can't expect me to do anything else, can you?"

Spike can't say anything to argue with that, so he just grabs a weapon of his own, scowling at the expressions of surprise mirrored on Wesley's and Xander's faces. "Don't look at me like that. _You_ can't expect me to just sit here while you go off and get yourself killed on the pouf's account. Not going to happen, luv."

Wesley grabs the keys to the Desoto off the hook and tosses them to the vampire. "You're driving."

****

* * *

The three of them lean against each other wearily and survey the bodies of the demons strewn around Cordelia's living room. "Well, that was fun," Spike remarks cheerfully, and Xander and Wesley both rouse themselves enough to give him a tired glare.

"What are you three doing here?" Angel growls at them from the other wall. Xander and Wesley direct their glares towards him, but Spike, at least, has energy enough to argue with the older vampire.

"A little birdie told us," he says. "He was.... very insistent. Then these two were about to take off to save the Princess, an' I couldn't let them out on their own, now, could I? So here we all are."

"Doyle, damn it, you shouldn't have told them but thank you anyway," Cordelia says with an equal lack of energy, seemingly to thin air. The air moves in a little ripple that looks slightly like a shrug, and Cordelia grins tiredly back at him.

"Huh?" Angel says, and Wesley manages to muster up enough energy to laugh at him.

"God, Angel, you're going to catch flies like that. Shut your mouth, at least."

Angel glares at him. "What's going on here, exactly?"

"Well, I can tell you what it looks like from here," Gunn puts in from his comfortable position on the couch. "It looks like Cordy's been hangin' out with Wesley and Xander. And it looks like there's a ghost that knows her that was keepin' an eye on us. And it looks like that ghost went off and told them when we got in trouble, and it looks like they came and saved our collective asses. Does it look like that to you, Fred?"

"It looks like that to me," she affirms. She's tucked comfortably under his arm, and Wesley finds that he can't manage to dredge up even a smidgen of the old pain that the sight used to cause him. "Cordy?"

"Sounds about right," she says. "Are we thanking them?"

"Yes," Gunn and Fred say, just as Angel growls, _"No,"_ and Connor looks like he is wavering between his father and the people who clearly saved their hides. Apparently deciding that this was more than enough of a majority vote, Cordy turns to the threesome slumped against the wall and says, "Thank you."

"Yeah, sure," Spike says, waving one hand, but it's evident that he actually means it. "We done here?"

"Probably," Cordelia says, and then turns to Wesley and asks, very hesitantly, "Do you mind if I spend the night at your place? My apartment is trashed."

"Of course," he says, surprised, "but keep in mind that this stuff is just going to set if you don't get it cleaned up."

Doyle wavers into view at that, which draws surprised expressions of surprise from everyone except the Zoo Crew (as Cordelia once told Wesley she has dubbed all of the warehouse family) and Cordelia. Angel looks uncomfortable, and Wesley swears that he sees something very like a tear when the vampire looks at his old friend, but Gunn and Fred and Connor just look confused.

"You know, I didn't think that Dennis could show himself," Fred says hesitantly, and Doyle shakes his head.

"I'm Doyle, not Dennis. He wants me to tell you that he'll get the whole mess cleaned up, though," Doyle says to Cordelia. "He knows you're exhausted and besides, he can get it cleaned up hella faster than you can."

"Thanks, Dennis," she says gratefully, and one of the figurines on the mantel is tapped against the wood in acknowledgement. She shoots a desperate look at Wesley that Doyle intercepts and the ghost floats down to her side and touches her lightly on one bare arm. She smiles up at him, somehow able to feel the ghostly touch even in his dematerialized state, and then she blows a kiss to Fred and walks out the door. Doyle and Xander follow directly after her, and Spike follows Xander, so Wesley is left alone in the apartment with the rest of Angel Investigations.

Discovering that this is a place that he doesn't want to be, he turns to leave as well, but Angel's low voice stops him. "Wesley, what the hell is going on?"

Wesley turns back, starting to lose his temper just a little. Only a little, mind you, but enough that his voice is sharp when he speaks. "You need to stop trying to deny others what never belonged to you in the first place. This is not _your_ city, not matter what you told Buffy the last time she was here. I most certainly don't belong to you, and neither does Cordelia. You had no right to feel betrayed that I'm living with other people, other people who are not your mortal enemies no matter how much you try to pretend that they are, and you certainly don't have a right to be upset because Cordelia wishes to spend the night with us instead of you."

"I have plenty of room-"Angel starts to protest, but Wesley cuts him off with a sharp slash of his hand.

"You have an empty mausoleum of a hotel, a refrigerator of pig's blood, and yourself for company, which God knows is nothing that anyone could wish for if they're expecting a conversation. She wants to stay with us because we have a _home_ with a decent kitchen that's full of laughing, happy people who all accept her, and most importantly, none of us are in love with her. Please, Angel, get over yourself. Learn to accept the fact that Angel Investigations is not the only group of people who fight evil. You do it because it's your duty, and we do it because we enjoy it, but the end results are the same, and you can't stand that. So just... deal with it." He pauses for breath, and glances from a stunned Gunn and Fred to an inscrutable Connor. "Connor, it was nice to meet you. Although I'm sure you wouldn't say the same. Gunn and Fred, feel welcome to join us for dinner sometime, and if you ever need us you know where to find us. You," and he pins Angel with a fierce glare, "Never talk to me again."

Then he turns on his heel and storms out of Cordelia's apartment, slamming the door behind him.

****

* * *

Evil is left to roam the streets that night, because no one feels like going out. Willow collapses into a deep and exhausted sleep shortly after they get back, and Oz stays to watch over her. Lindsey has the night off and he and Faith are holed up in their rooms (just in case Cordelia is holding a grudge) and Wesley is far too angry to do more than sit in the living room and glare at the TV while Spike does his level best to cheer him up and Xander cleans up from their interrupted dinner. Doyle is getting Cordelia settled in the only available room- his- and everyone can see the transparent happiness on his face to have her there.

Eventually everyone comes back into the living room for a bad-TV marathon, and Wesley relaxes enough to enjoy the major snuggling he's getting from his lovers. Even Willow is awake and semi-alert, and is curled into an armchair with Oz at her feet and her fingers idly playing with his hair. Wesley notices, with something of a smile, that neither Doyle nor Cordelia join them, and whenever the sound of the TV lulls briefly he can hear their voices tumbling over each other in an endless stream of speech.

Everyone is asleep by the time the sun comes up except for Cordelia and Doyle, neither of whom are used to sleeping during the daytime, and Wesley himself. He walks down the halls and checks on everyone- no one ever shuts their doors in this place when they go to bed every morning, and so Wesley always walks through the halls and shuts all the doors before he goes to bed, checking on everyone as he does so. It makes him feel something like a zookeeper, which is fair considering the occupants of the warehouse, but mostly like family.

And on this night he closes the door to Doyle's room and neither the ghost nor Cordelia notices because they're so wrapped up in each other, and the easy, loving conversation between them reminds him that these two knew each other before he entered the little LA picture. But the realization causes him no pain, just a sort of sweet ache in his heart when he realizes the continuum of family that surrounds them all, and he shuts the door and goes back to his own lovers with a little smile on his face.

Cordelia goes back to the hotel that night after a large dinner, and when she returns a few days later she has Gunn and Fred with her as well. Everyone is made welcome for as long as they wished to visit, and Wesley silently goes out and brings back a bigger couch, and a bigger kitchen table.

Buffy comes into town, looking for some demon that she has a personal beef with, and Spike gives her a place on the couch for as long as she wants it. But when she sees him with Xander and Wesley she gets angry, and then Spike very politely asks her to leave.

Giles stops by for a while, and even with him Wesley can make peace, perhaps because of some magic that is part of their warehouse home. He doesn't understand it, but he's grateful for their haven, and he and Giles part on friendly terms.

Eventually even Connor can be coaxed there, and though he never truly relaxes he seems to be a very different boy than the angry one Wesley remembers from that night long ago in the bar. He seems almost happy sometimes, though worried about Angel's approval, and Wesley wonders whether everyone wants that approval, whether Angel is really some pale moonlight god that demands respect, but he tosses the idea aside as being ridiculous. After all, no one knows better than he that in the end, Angel is only human.

Angel is the only one from the long story of their lives that never joins them in their warehouse home, but Wesley doesn't mind because he can't find it in himself to forgive the vampire. Maybe someday, years from now if they're all still alive, they can start speaking again, and maybe a friendship can be saved. But not now, and so when Angel never shows up at their door he doesn't worry, or even feel slighted. He just thinks, Some day.

And as the seasons turn he feels their family (and their extended family) draw closer and closer, and sometimes he watches them. And when he watches them he sees the continuum of family, and how perfect it all is, and he wonders if this isn't how everything was how it was really meant to be.

And he thinks that maybe, all his dreams finally came true.


End file.
